The government certainly has a duty to check if the large sums given to Kids Company are used effectively. It has been given about £30 million of public money since 2008, mostly from central government. It is also energetic at raising money from celebrity backers such as Damien Hirst. The rockband Coldplay alone has given £8 million.

Camila Batmanghelidjh in her office

So how effective is it? I have written a book on gangs and a report on children in care. As part of my research I visited the Kids Company centre in south London. Batmanghelidjh claims 50 or 60 kids a day visit the centre for its nutritious meals, education and Pilates. On my first visit, however, I found just one sulky teenager over whom 10 staff hovered solicitously.

One of the staff told me to return the following Friday if I wanted to see what was really going on. This time I found about 20 young people having lunch. When I asked some why they came, they looked surprised: “For the money of course.” It certainly was not for the education or Pilates. As I saw for myself, staff handed out envelops of cash ranging from £50 to £200 – a serious amount to a young person receiving roughly £50 a week from the state. According to staff and kids, this happened every Friday.

This financial allowance appeared to be the key to the popularity of the centre. One member of staff said: “You don’t see most of the kids coming any other day.” One girl told me: “I come on Friday lunch times to socialise, pick up my allowance and then I go.” Outside I saw four or five cars queuing up. Young people jumped out and ran into the centre. They returned a few moments later, waving their envelopes in the air and grinning. Then they got back into the car and were driven away. Two girls sent by the Prince’s Trust for a week’s course described how, when one young man turned up furious that his allowance had been cut, he threatened staff, shouted abuse, then snatched up a fire extinguisher and threw it into the office where the woman who handed out the cash crouched, terrified.

Batmanghelidjh has defended the practice of giving out money in this way. “Middle-class parents give their children pocket money,” she has said. “Why does it become a problem when it’s a poor child that’s being given money?” But one staff member pointed out to me that charities are judged by the number of people using them. Handing out cash achieves a high body count.

What about the young people Kids Company is supposed to help? One young man from care explained he had gone to the charity at 15 in the hope of an education. But, he said, he did not learn anything. He just picked up money every week which he spent on his crack addiction. His verdict on the charity? “I am not going back there. If you stay you don’t progress none, do you get me? You got to leave to progress.”

That was, admittedly, nine years ago. But last summer I sat outside the same centre for two days to see what had changed. Not much. And disturbing questions about the charity continue to emerge. One young woman who worked in its accounts department claims that Kids Company still hands out cash (though these days to parents, and on Wednesdays and Thursdays instead of Fridays). She claimed the money is not given according to need but, more often than not, because “people turn up and cuss and make a noise until they get their money”.

What has happened in Kids Company raises questions about charities generally. How accountable are they? And how do we judge the good they do? What is certain is that it is too easy to measure charities on the charisma of their chief executive and their PR skills alone, rather than what they may actually achieve. Batmanghelidjh, for her part, has hinted at a witch hunt, a backlash that has come about because Kids Company “repeatedly challenged governments because they are not protecting children robustly”.

There is no doubt that many of Kids Company’s staff do a heroic job. But I found the opinions of some of the kids whom Kids Company claims to help damning. They saw no point complaining. As one said sadly to me: “Who is goin’ to ask us, crack addicts, robbers, street kids, our views? Who’s goin’ to talk to us, take our word when all those nice middle-class people are saying how wonderful Kids Company is?” It seems the Cabinet Office, at least, has listened. Finally these kids might be able to have their say – and be believed.

Harriet Sergeant is the author of Among the Hoods - My Years with a Teenage Gang